Forbidden City Level Concept
Level Concept Forbidden city Deighton 1701611 To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy - Sun Tzu Foreword: ' As Beijing descends into a civil war the Mystics seek to dethrone the Knight’s leader who has hidden himself away inside its hallowed halls. Now as the Mystics fight to reach him they realise that something much bigger is hidden in the Forbidden City. '''Facts: ' Introduction to area: you move with the reconnaissance group to fight and establish a breach head to attack into the city and kill the Leaders of the Knights. Area backstory: The Forbidden City stands in the centre of Beijing and is home to the ruler of Beijing as it once did before. It is guarded by the knights religiously and has other more supernatural defenders who attack all trespassers on sight. The Forbidden City is full of screaming howls of unnatural beasts and demons defending the city. Player motivation: Kill the leaders of the Knights to free Beijing from their tyranny and learn more about what draws you to the forbidden palace. Level range: 39 - 40 Key areas: Spawn room, door room, Knight’s Headquarters, boss arena 3 Number of key events: get through the door! , find Knight rulers, get to the throne room, fight the dragon 4 Factions: 3 Special content: this zone is a massive 3 way battle between the Knights, the Mystics and the supernatural inhabitants of the Forbidden City. You are friendly with the Mystic faction but the other two factions will aggro on you and each other. This leads to the player being able to tactically move around the raging battlefield attracting less aggro as the NPC’s fight each other as well as the player. Why this zone is interesting/unique: Set in the Forbidden City with a raging battle being fought with a mix of magic, technology and a mix of both. This contrasts greatly with the Forbidden cities ancient architecture with a wide array of enemy types and a large melee throughout most of the level that the player will have to navigate to achieve his objectives. This will make the zone a non-stop fight to the finish where the player will have to fight for every inch he advances. As the last fight in the Beijing hub it serves as the lasting last impression of the zone and intends to make a splash with the player. '''Area Information: Overview: The zone is a nonstop fight to get through the streets and buildings of the Forbidden City with scripted events and ending boss fight in the throne room. From the very get go the player will start fighting before even being able to accept the quests in the level, you will have to clear the spawn room of enemies and then fight through hordes of enemies that slowly respawn making it a challenge for the player to push through the level. The player will have supporting Mystic troops who will push through the level with him, these units will push against the hordes of enemies but will need the players help to move through the zone effectively. It’s intended to make the player to feel like he is leading the charge throughout the level by leading a wave of Mystic forces with accompanying important NPC’s. Map Overview: This rough map shows off the rough level design and how the level will play out. The 4 named rooms are where most of the dialogue and plot will take place throughout the level as well as the scripted events. The Red lines represent barriers that can’t be passed until certain events happen. This will mostly be character dialogue and quest handouts/hand-ins. This zone is intended to be nonstop action to get to the Knights Headquarters where the player expects the level to end. The only safe spaces with no enemies in them will be the corridor to the boss room and the spawn room after it is originally cleared out. Timings: It’s intended to take the player to take roughly 25 minutes on this level for a aptly levelled and geared player. Rough level timings: 3 minutes to clear spawn room and pickup level quests 7 minutes of fighting through the corridors to get to the Door room. 5 minutes fighting the event in the door room. 4 minutes clearing out Knights headquarters and reading the dialogue from the NPC’s 6 minutes fighting the boss in the boss room. Area descriptions: Spawn room: This is as the name suggests the room where the player spawns in when they originally enter the level. The room is covered in a skirmish between the Knights and the Mystics, the player will have to clear out the room before getting a set of quests to complete throughout the level. Enemies: Knight Crusader, Knight Crossbowman NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer, Brother Zahler Corridors: the winding corridors heading further into the city are an all-out war between the Knights and the supernatural. As you fight through with your mystic entourage you will fight and clear a path through the melee to get to the next objective. Enemies: Red Demon, Caster Demon, Demon Raider, Knight Crusader Knight Crossbowman Door room: Corpses are strewn across the floor but nothing shows what caused their gruesome ends. As you reach the door you realise it’s magically sealed and that it will take a while to get through. As the Mystics start to work on the door you start to hear a grinding noise as the stone statues that surround the room come to life and start to slowly march towards you. Fight and try to take the minimum casualties of your forces (Event room: hold out for 4 minutes against an enemy that constantly respawns and slowly kills off your supporters.) Enemies: Stone guardian, Stone commander, red demon NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer, Brother Zahler Knights Headquarters: As you finally break through the door, you see more destruction and the Knights Headquarters in absolute disarray. The knight’s leaders are dead and are surrounded by demons. After you clear the room you find that one of the leaders is hanging just onto life. He tells you that they thought they could control him but they couldn’t before passing into the afterlife. Enemies: Red Demon, Caster Demon, Demon Raider NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer, Brother Zahler, Commander Weir Boss room: As you enter the boss room you are greeted by Lord Fei Hong after a short cutscene conversation he turns into the Dragon of the East and the boss fight ensues. The Dragon spawns sets of demons as he flies above the player out of reach. Keep the Mystic casters safe as they force the dragon down. After the dragon is down the player can begin to fight the boss. The player will have to balance protecting the casters (who keep the dragon down) and killing the boss. The player also has the option to use a Knight Techno-magic machine to take down the door to allow more Mystic supporters through to help in the fight. Enemies: Red Demon, Demon Raider, Dragon of the East NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer, Brother Zahler, Lord Fei Hong, Dragon of the East Character Progression: Motivation: the player character has to take the Forbidden City to free the denizens of Beijing and find out what’s been drawing him to the Forbidden City. Story Flow: The player leads the charge against the dangers of the Forbidden City. As a now well proven warrior he leads by example, from the front, and fights through the demons and Knights. In the Door room the player is instrumental in keeping the Stone soldiers at bay while the Mystic Casters worked on the door. After striking the final blow on the dragon the player is heralded as one of the saviours of Beijing. Factions and denizens: Mystics: The mystic Faction inhabit the outer ring of populated Beijing. They are believers of free magic use and want more access to the internet (A scarce resource in Beijing used to trade and to detect monsters). The mystics are unfriendly at best to the Knights and hostile entirely to the supernatural. NPC’s: Mystic Gerrer Mystic Gerrer: Gerrer is the unofficial leader of the Mystics. He pulled together the squabbling sub-factions to overthrow the oppressive Knights. Gerrer’s family were killed because they weren’t deemed necessary. Gerrer’s story mirrors many others in Beijing and he is an advocate of more access to the internet to keep people safe from the supernatural. Supernatural: The supernatural are the creatures summoned after the re-enchantment they come back to their homes only to find it in stone and with humans abound in numbers they’ve never seen before. The supernatural hound the edges of Beijing raiding and pillaging the outer layers of the city for their own supernatural gains. The supernatural are unfriendly to all other factions. NPC’s: Dragon of the East Dragon of the East: The dragon of the East came and wreaked havoc in Beijing after the Re-enchantment. The dragon was “defeated” by the Knights in a large battle between the denizens of Beijing and the unnatural. After this defeat he took refuge in the body of Fei Hong the leader of the Knights and the striker of the final blow. Soon he broke the man’s will and ruled Beijing from inside however, he couldn’t stay entirely hidden forever. He forged an agreement with the knights to exchange information for his life. Knights: The Knights of Earth referred commonly as Knights are the current rulers of Beijing. They hold their own elite society in the centre of Beijing while leaving their peers on the dangerous outer edges of Beijing. They control the internet access to stay in power and control who comes in and out of the city. NPC’s: Brother Zahler: Brother Zahler was born after the cataclysmic Re-enchantment and from an early age idolised the bravery of the Knights for holding back the demons and slaying the terrible dragon. Luckily for him being born into a wealthy family joining the knights was easy for him and he quickly rose in the ranks. Soon after he realised how twisted the knights had become in their lust for power and he escaped. Zahler sought out the Mystics to try and tell them of the wrong that the Knights were committing but was distrusted and not listened to. Zahler fell into an alcoholic fuelled depression until the player finds him. He is one of the player’s staunchest supporters and shows him around Beijing and fights with him till the end. Lord Fei Hong: Lord Fei Hong is from a noble line with links to Chinese royalty. Tutored from a young age to be strong and kind he was well reputed for helping refugees after the Re-enchantment and originally formed the Knights of Earth as a final hurrah to the chivalry that this world had left behind. When he struck down the Dragon he felt elated but knew something was wrong. He fought the dragon inside of him and told his comrades about his plight. After finding no way to remove the dragon the Knights eventually turned on him exchanging his body and soul for secrets that the dragon gave. Fei Hong was incarcerated within the forbidden city as he slowly lost his soul to the dragon. Summary: The forbidden city is the crescendo of the Beijing zone, it is supposed to feel like a gratifying uphill fight against wrongdoing. The player will be challenged leading the charge of his Mystic allies on the Forbidden City.